iRufus' Mega Menagerie (Otago) North Taieri, South Island, New Zealand
By iRufus on 17-Oct-12. Waypoint GC3YW5F

Nice big cache. No animal on lid? Log book a little damp

Found it tftc

Found this one with TTO1 and TTO2 today. TTO1 and I are touring New Zealand with TTO2 for a couple of weeks and our travels brought us by this cache. So, we just had to stop and find it. Were really enjoying our visit and have been exploring lots of cool spots. Im sure that we will still have a lot that we didnt get to see on this trip, so I look forward to coming back again some time to see some more of this beautiful country. We enjoyed the hike up to get the nearby oldie and then stopped to find this one as we finished our hike. Thanks for the fun!

Day three - Geo Toroa DunedinFinally the sun has decided to show its faceWith Queensland buddies, Snickersallan, chamad and Wollaston, BenM70, gcovernSigned log as QLD+1Thanks for creating and placing for our enjoyment

Here in the land of the king white cloud to attend the mega in Dunedin. Many thanks to all those involved in the organisation! Today we targeted some oldies and virtuals . Much better weather and lots of fun. Travelling and caching as a group Qld+1. A big hike included! Cheers

Our third and final day of the Mega caching with geofriends from Aus before we go our separate ways. Group consisted of Bluewattle, chamad, Wollaston, Willis007, kolour, Ardom, Gcoven, BenM70, and Snickersallan. Logs were signed as QLD+1.A big thank you to all the cache owners who placed this great amount of caches for our enjoyment and the benefit of the whole geocaching community.Apologies for the generic logs, as I rarely log them whilst travelling around the countryside and tend to do them once back at home.

*** draft log for stats tracking, more later ***GC3YW5F iRufus' Mega Menagerie (Otago)Traditional Large28 Oct 2024T15:13:05 NZDTTFTC iRufusHeading south with Heihei, along with most of New Zealands cachers, for the Dunedin Mega.After the penguins and a rushed lunch I went for the Flagstaff Hill oldie, though didnt have time for the other 2 there I had on the list.Quick find of the nice large container, after a subsequentl Mega. Now time for the airport ??

My knees were feeling very aggrieved at having to exercise today, and weren't the slightest bit impressed at scrambling through the undergrowth to get 'the oldie' further up the hill.But after a bit of a rest, I decided 'large' sized containers were fairly rare, so I headed back for this one, which was found reasonably quickly. Thanks for putting it here

iRufus' Mega Menagerie (Otago)Dunedin MEGA Monday and day 3 of some great caching with QLD caching buddies! More great caches to be found while exploring the beautiful Dunedin. Signing our logs QLD + 1 to save room, we were pleased to see most of the caches had been recently maintained and enjoyed a great variety of hides and types.A massive thank you to all of the COs for the preparation, placement and maintenance of these caches. TFTC iRufus# 10685CheersWillis007

Out and about with Willis007 and other members of the group QLD+1 finding solved puzzles and multis plus other targeted caches. We decided to walk up to the oldie at the top, picking up a few traditionals along the way. Logbook signed and replaced as found. Tftc

#22867 @1000In NZ to attend Geo Toroa. Today was focused on old caches, types, and sizes needed for various challenges, as much as the weather would allow. Cache easily found. TFTC.

Fangsoki and I had returned from our adventure up the hill when Fangsoki reminded me that this cache was not far from where we had parked.He had found it previously so he left it up to me to head in for a quick find.The geo-trail helped me locate the cache.TFTC iRufus

Arrived in town from Queenstown and met up with the group of McLookers, Phetlern, feathertop, LuckyL10n and Wombatwandering and headed off for the 4 old Dunedin caches. This one was grabbed as we started the hike up the hill for Mt Flagstaff...and great to start the hike on a positive note. Many thanks for the cache iRufus....

#12223 - 3:17:00 PM; Day three of the GeoToroa Mega Road Trip with Sol de lune and our better halves. After a couple of nights in Queenstown, today we are headed across to Dunedin for the Mega weekend. On arrival, we met up with some other "Aussies on Walkabout" (McLookers, feathertop, Pheltern and Wombatwandering) to collect the four local caches published in 2000, along with some others we passed along the way, including this one, before wrapping up the day at the Meet and Greet Event. Logs were signed/stamped "Aussies on Walkabout" or "AoW" on behalf of our group and then returned as found. Collected this one as we started our trek up to Flagstaff Hill. TFTC iRufus

Heading from Queesnstown to Dunedin for the Mega. Decided to go east via Omakua and Ranfurly, arriving in Dunedin from the north - doing caches and AL'ss along the way and this is was of them.Logs were signed as ''Aussies on Walkabout'Thanks to the CO for keeping the game board alive.38009

A quick find with Gazania Rigens before powering up the track towards the oldies. ??TFTC

We were chasing a few golden oldies today so headed to Flagstaff Hill. Phetlern made a speedy find here before we headed up the hill. Found with Feathertop, McLookers, Sol de lune, LuckyL10n and Phetlern. Log signed Aussies on Walkabout. Thanks!

A quick find at the start of the long slog up to Flagstaff Hill. The track was busy with cachers today. TFTC!

A visit to the area to find an old cache and the rest of the caches on the Ridge.Log signed Aussies on Walkabout. Found with Mclookers Wanderingwombat, Sol de lune, LuckyL10n and Phetlern.Many thanks for a large cache too.

2nd cache we've found thanks

A quick find by Phetlern on the beginning of our trek. Log signed Aussies on Walkabout. Found with Feathertop, Wanderingwombat, Sol de lune, LuckyL10n and Phetlern.Thanks for placing the cache iRufus.

A quick find with angelic_kiwi - tftc

A worker sitting in his vehicle nearby made this one a bit more tricky but fortunately it was out of his sight and we could make the find. Always love the large caches, thanks so much for hiding and maintaining it.

On the way down from the 2000 placed cache we couldnt resist grabbing these caches. Each one was found in decent condition and it got progressively harder to sign the logbook as my hands got colder and colder. Thankyou for placing these caches and maintaining them TFTC

Tftc. Caching with Jennyfromthefarm

Didn't take long to find enjoyed seeing everything inside it nice and dry

A huge thank you to the cache owner for creating and maintaining a wonderful cache. EP79 and I have embarked on a three-month long geocaching trip across the globe, and we are both grateful and thrilled to discover new places and new friends. The first part of our trip is dedicated to Australia and New Zealand. Today planned some oldies. Since we are far away from home, statistics for caches that are hard to get elsewhere took precedence. We combined the hunt with sightseeing locations going to places that are very unfamiliar with landscape so different from the one we know. Many thanks for an amazing find on the way, especially since it's a large one.Sorry for logging with a delay. The trip was really busy, but at least I get to revisit these caches again and enjoy great memories. Many thanks for the invite to a beautiful place and for a wonderful geocaching adventure. Greetings from Prague, the Czech Republic, Europe.

Thank you for the cache!Another day exploring and geocaching in New Zealand with my bestfriend geocacher Ironford. We are staying in Dunedin for a few days and really enjoying our time here. Yesterday we went to see (actually sailed to see) the albatross colony, and today we have big geo-plans: some amazing oldies in great locations (the variety of landscape is fantastic), lots of driving on the left and finally shopping for dinner and snackies in our favourite New World. It turned out to be a really great day.Greetings from Prague, Czech Republic Ha ha! Learning enough about flax and manuka trees at a previous cache, this was too easy. A final find at this location.

Nice wee bush walk, very good location

After finding the Old School Challenge cache I headed back to the car via Flagstaff, picking up a few more finds along the way. The weather was changeable. I started off in low cloud, had some sunshine, then some hail, then back to sunshine again. An Enjoyable 2 hour 40 minute walk. No worries here. TFTC

In the final week of what has been a 2.5 month working holiday through South East Asia and Oceania. Some roughly accurate overall trip stats:~ 830 total finds (non-AL)- 424 in Australia- 196 in New Zealand- 131 in Thailand- 40 in Hawaii- 14 in South Korea- 12 in Nevada- 5 in Indonesia- 4 in Malaysia- 2 in Laos- 1 in MyanmarOf the 830 total finds, roughly 110 of them were multis (my favorite cache type).14 year 2000 caches including all of the year 2000 caches in OceaniaOldest caches found in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, and Indonesia9 virtual only fizzy fillers (5/5, 4/3, 1.5/3.5, 2/4.5, 4/3.5, 2.5/5, 2.5/4, 2/5, 3/4.5)2 earthcache only fizzy fillers (2.5/3.5, 3/3.5)4 California original fizzy fillers (5/2.5, 2/4.5, 3.5/4.5, 4.5/1.5)Many thanks to all the COs who have placed these caches for me to find!Spotted this one quickly after following the geotrail. Thanks for the cache.

Found thanks

great cache

Another one found thanks

Nice

Awesome hide. Thanks

Out and about on day 8 of my South Island Tour and day 2 of "Wellingtonions Gone South: Dunedin Edition" with NZ_B, TwigNZ, Mr-Mcgoo, Itchyfeet2020 and matagouri. The target of this day was mainly Flagstaff Hill, Mt Cargill and some other caches around the area. All logs signed as MINT. TFTC

(# 8305) The Wellington crew are on another mission. Included are Itchyfeet2020, NZ_B, TwigNZ, Matagouri and TaybeeNZ who are collectively known as Team Mint. As usual quite a bit of hilarity. Day 2 was more local. Retrieved this before embarking on the walk up the hill. Signed as MINT.Thanks iRufus for bringing me here.

A group of friends have traveled together to Dunedin to collectively target a whole bunch of caches, primarily because of their value in terms of Jasmer Grid filling, or for certain Challenge Caches that we have elected to try to achieve.M.M.I.N.T.T are Mr-Mcgoo, matagouri, Itchyfeet2020, NZ_B, taybee nz and TwigNZ. Some logs were signed this way, some were signed as M.I.N.T for expediency, and some (mainly Challenge Caches) were signed with individual names.Our 'big' target for today would be a walk up to Flagstaff to get the old cache there as well as GC31PYY. We knew it would not necessarily be an easy day, but we were all keen to knock this off.Having parked up at the 'Bull Ring', this was our first stop before tackling the hill climb (which I ended up almost doing twice over, but that's another story!). A nice and quick find here. All is fine here with Cache and contents, and the team name was soon entered into the log. Thank you for placing this cache for all to find.

And so the adventure begins. Onward and upward to find and log some special caches we need for challenges.Day 2 of The Wellingtonians are in Dunedin tour with TwigNZ, Mr-Mcgoo, Itchyfeet2020 and matagouri, as well as TaybeeNZ who decided to have a few days of his South Island tour with us. We are targeting specific caches -oldies, wherigos (thanks to the Seagnoids new caches on the Wainuiomata Hill road in Lower Hutt), a certain jet and hopefully a certain bird. Of course, there will be days of laughter, no doubt at my expense During our time here, all found caches were signed as MINT, regardless of whether 2, 3 or all 5 of us hadn't found it previously, or with individual names for Challenge Caches according to whomever was claiming the find.Kia ora rawa atu for the cache iRufus.

Day 2 of our Dunedin Adventure. Six welly cachers have arrived with lots of plans and caches to find. Watch out Dunedin. Used this cache to guide us into the parking area so of course we had to visit him first. All logs signed as MINT. TFTC.

A visit to Dunedin by Wellington geocachers NZ_B, Itchyfeet2020, TwigNZ, Mr-Mcgoo, Taybee NZ, and myself. Signing as Team MINT, targeting old caches, Wherigos, and whatever else we can find.Starting on the track to Flagstaff Hill, this was our first find. No problems at GZ. All good in container, tftc!

Well I came to the 2012 Dunedin Mega - and even went up this hill. How rude of me not to get this cache back then.1MinnieMoo and I soon found this prize safe and sound - nicely hidden for such a great sized cache. TFTC iRufus

13/9/2023 Find #6501
Day 5 of the Fangsoki/1MinnieMoo NZ adventures. We have a few days in Dunedin and today the priority goal was 4 particular old caches, and a few other old caches sprinkled through between. Of course when doing a walk such as this one, we will also grab any we pass along the way.
And how could we miss this one? An easy find to get us started today.
Thanks for the cache iRufus.

Tftc , booklet is a bit damp

Tftf. Lovely day for a stroll and a bit of geocaching

Found it. TFTC

TFTC

TFTC
Full of tradables so Master 7 loved it.
Pen doesn’t go anymore

Cache 1212 Finding caches for my “wheel of challenges” trip, headed to Dunedin Easter Friday ️‍for some hidden dates caches and if I’m lucky 1 or 2 D/T caches then when I return home on Sunday I plan on attacking the power trail at the back of lake Waihola to finish the challenge of “seeking smileys” x100 for the month. After the big trek up to GCB0, I was pretty tired but who can say no to a cache so close to the parking lot and that doesn’t take much effort, so that’s another cache closer to the 100 needed cache in good shape T4TC

Thanks, nice one

Thanks for the cache and greetings from Czechia

After parking the car at the start of the walkway to Flagstaff Hill, we, *Filser1* and I, found this cache. With the good hint in mind it was a quick and easy find.

T4TC

TEMBO! and I made a short break and found the container after a Not so quick search. The coords are jumping.

Thanks to iRufus for hiding and maintaining the cache.

T4TC Filser1

Bit of bush to go through! Nice easy find

Tftc

Parked at the bull pen. I went up the fire track most of the way to swampy doing caches on the track and on side tracks. Then came back via Flagstaff. Took a little over 4 hours.

Snared the two target caches of the day, Old School and 50% Favorite. My legs are pretty beaten up, between Old School and Walkaways of Otago - Swampy I did my fair share of bush bashing.

Popped down to the Rhododendron grove too because in my mind a 260 m vertical is just a small detour.

One of the caches found on this sort of loop walk was my 10,000th physical cache find.

TFTC

TFTC was a big bucket

It is big! Fun day out with the girls in the sun and wind. Took a bracelet. Heaps of treasures still here

Amost a park and grab, picked up bucket on wander past and still brings leaps of mirth. Yeah noice big bucket in the rushes. Some rubbish got chucked out along with someone's lunch wrappers and cache goods were gathered in XLPVC reserved for buckets in the bush once some quality swag was popped in. No glad bin tidy sacks here. The code word for the final wasn't what I was expecting going with a theme but got tucked away for reference. It didn't need correcting like the Gardens double-up in town. Gave the bucket a rinse to get rid of 10 years of crud. Covered the cache under some duff to shield the whiteness from view. Thanks for leaving your only cache here Nof junior. *Labyrinth **15pt** trad **235pt***. TFTC

Ttfc

Quick find, starting a walk with poofymayo and MsEvs TFTC

First family find

Tftc

Done

On bike ride

Found at the end of a long mostly-successful day searching out the caches around Flagstaff - brilliant midwinter weather

Walk through the bush

On a road trip, more to follow later

#12191

Morning walk with whanau. We will be back with treasures to swap.

On a tour of the area getting some large caches. All good with the cache. Thanks

A lovely big bucket. I think that's the third for the day. The final cache in today's grand adventure. Thanks!#7824

First cache on a lovely autumn day enjoyed with about 500 others and their dogs and their dog shit!! TFTC

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Nice quick find to start off my walk.
Looking forward to the upcoming views

Failed in route planning but got there eventually

Fun navigating

Nice and close to car park

Rose found it. Snowing here at the moment.

Last cache of the area after walking back down from the top. Love a large cache and left several TBs in it that I will log into the cache once I'm home.

Trip log: When cheap flights presented the opportunity to go to NZ with GreyHams, who was keen to get the 5 2000 caches and the web cam I was of course very keen to tag along. I didn't want to miss out on that... Equally as keen for those caches myself and the first chance to get the passport out in a long time and head overseas while we could. Covid Happenings of course did put the trip in doubt and a last minute effort from GreyHams to get the flights changed and it was looking like this might actually happen... until I arrived I truly didn't think it would!

The cache list was quite simple, the 5 2000 caches and the webcams. Of course we did look at others as we travelled, types, DT, not chosen which were in abundunce and caches of quality, if your cache made our list it had a quality we needed. Many thanks for your cache that helped guide us along our way.

Certainly it was a memorable time, barefoot 500 plus metres across a mud estuary of shells and crabs was more fun than it should be. As was pushing through wet thick high flax or tall wet grass across to the caches. But the most memorable would be the fog, the thickest, most relentless fog but it provided some stunning scenery at times and was just crazy.

I loved seeing all the chinese takeaways that did fish and chips, the perfect hedges and a deserved shout out to Indian Zaika for its great food! Certainly with the fog and rain it was an interesting trip and we got quite drenched at times, it hid a lot that NZ has to offer but 'it's a caching trip' after all so it ticked all the right boxes and was very enjoyable regardless. Huge thanks to GreyHams for letting me tag along while he did all the planning, booking, driving and sending in the answers for the caches... as always!

Nice and easy

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Trip log:

International travel!!...OMG it feels good. Grabbed some cheap flights and anxiously waited for some outbreak to derail the plan, but that amazingly didn't happen. Sure, I had to scramble and reroute our trip via Brisbane & Sydney as we were originally going through the plague pit...aka Melbourne, but we still made it.

Having done most of the North Island, it was good to finally have a crack at the South. 5 year 2000 caches and a webcam, thats a nice little haul. Sure, some of the year 2000 caches involved bush bashing....in the rain/fog/mist...but we got them all. We had lots of other little targets like getting all our types/sizes/DT, NZ in particular has so many 'Not Chosen' size caches, super rare back in Oz, so we made sure to get as many as possible. If you are reading this, its because this cache had a quality we were chasing.

As always, the Earthcaches and the Virtuals took us to some really cool places, the Steampunk HQ and the boulders being birthed at the beach being the highlights. My favourite cache though would have to be the one where we had to walk 500m over a mud flat, dodging shells and crabs with our bare feet.

This trip will be remembered as the 'fog trip' as we saw a lot of it, which meant we saw little else. Oh, that and how every Chinese takeaway also doubles as the fish & chip shop....its a thing!

Glad I didn’t find any animals

26 April 2021 13:57. The last and a good one as I wa almost back at the car. TFTC, a large cache is good to find!

Decided to have a look around on a boring Sunday

Beaut location! Have to work abit to get this one (get in the bushes) makes it fun! TFTCSL
Just a heads up to the owner, there is alot of wrappers etc in the cache bucket, imagine left by others- would hope its not what they are swapping trades for.

Great day for a damp bush bash!! TFTC

Great spot, to contemplate, but today it was full of dogs wanting to help.. will return to succeed

Found

Found

Quick find following the geo trail. Big cache with little swag so left some.

Nice and easy find. That’s the last of the series for me (edit - except I've realised there's one more to get!!). Tftc

Found with Miss Pod

A lovely day which would should not be wasted. Messaged Eve07 to see if she was feeling up for a walk and after a debate in the car we decided to avenge my attempt of the bull ring flagstaff and swampy road round walk. 5 years ago I attempted it and at T for 2 area I fell down a hole and well doctors said that I would have been better off breaking it, 2 years it took to recover from that. I swore I wouldn't come back on own and Eve07 agreed.

We had a bit of a laugh but the lack of shade up here and lack of wind made it very hot hiking up these hills. Luckily we found along the bullock track some flax bushes tall enough to rest under out of the sun. By late afternoon near the pineapple track we could hear some noise, like a boombox .... but wait its the Six60 concert at the Stadium.

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[NZ Mega 2020](http://nzmega.com) is definitely happening, but has been postponed until 2021. It will be held in Auckland over Labour Weekend, 22 to 25 October 2021. It's going to be a massive celebration of geocaching:

* 20+ years of geocaching worldwide.
* 20+ years since New Zealand had the very first geocache hidden outside of USA.
* All the 20s and now 21 as well!

Talk to your geo-friends and start planning to be part of [this event](http://nzmega.com) - you won't want to miss it!

Dunedin hill clouds were in great form with no views at all. So glad I brought my boots as the vegetation was so wet. Decided that I may as well get wet shorts right from the start and warm up with brisk walking. As it turned out the whole trip to Ramblers Reward and most the way back was wet especially going across to Flagstaff Hill. So, a wet start to get to this cache, but a good start otherwise. Many thanks.

Big one

Met a couple of the menagerie in the form of two chickens I almost stood on. I note the last geocacher dated her find but didn't write her name. Nice to see an old style container but needs some swag. TFTC

Have been meaning to come up here for a long time, at last I am in Dunedin with a couple of spare hours to wonder around up here and grab some caches.
TFTC really enjoyed my afternoon walking.

Another find of a large container - which we need for another challenge. Glad to have this done after a long day in the hills. TFTC

Nice cache after a walk to Flagstaff. Thanks!